IT’S CALLED PUBLIC SERVICE, AND THE SALARY SCALE CAN STAY WHERE IT IS

It’s clear where Young stands on the issue. In a bid to raise mayor and council pay in 2008, Young said council members should “make a salary that doesn’t just attract rich people, desperate people or folks who are willing to sacrifice just about anything to get into this office.”

That proposal died, as others have since the last pay increase for elected city officials in 2003.

One argument for a pay raise is that it would augment a benefits package that once included a nice pension but now has a 401(k). Another is that elected officials earn less in San Diego than elsewhere.

Yet as far as annual average salary goes, San Diego’s council members landed right in the middle of a 2011 Pew Charitable Trust survey of 15 cities, which included the 10 largest. Such comparisons can be difficult because city council salaries, benefits, sizes and responsibilities vary widely. But for comparison’s sake, Phoenix council members earned $62,000 and San Jose’s earned $90,000. Los Angeles City Council members received $179,000, by far the largest. New York’s? $122,000.

Even so, San Diego council candidates won’t take up the cause because it would be political suicide. And council members (with whom the buck does, and should, stop) remain leery to push for raises because it’ll eat into political capital. That leaves a smattering of journalists, city employees and policy wonks pulling for it on Twitter or at sporadic public meetings.

In March, aware of the Pew report, San Diego council members unanimously rejected a proposal by the city’s salary-setting commission to increase their pay to $175,000 a year and the mayor’s to $235,000 annually.

That month, Young’s stance had evolved. He called the issue distracting.

“We want to make sure the council stays focused on the issues that really benefit the community,” he said. “At some point, this should be addressed, but this is not the time to do it.”

When is? Well, I’m not opposed to revisiting the issue every couple years — as the salary setting commission must by city charter. But don’t expect me to change my mind until city employees and the rest of us can expect raises, too. Even then, it may not be warranted.

Government is not a get-rich-quick scheme. It’s not called private service.